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The iPhone 11 Pro

Every year right after Apple announces a new iPhone, Digits get in touch with me asking me if I’d be interested in one. They always make sure I have a device on launch day so I could review it for the blog, and they always hook me up with a good discount on top of that. But, this was the first year I was a bit hesitant to say yes to them. I got the iPhone XS from them last year and it has been my favorite iPhone to date. The battery life was great, the camera was amazing and the OLED screen incredible. My phone was in great shape and I really didn’t have any issues with it so I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to plunk down money on a new one. But, since I take so many photos with the iPhone for the blog, the new ultra-wide lens and the new night mode would be really helpful, so I decided to get the iPhone 11 Pro in the new midnight green color.

When it came to choosing a color for the phone, any color would have been fine with me. I actually didn’t know what color my XS was until a friend asked me and I had to take it out of the silicon case to check. But since I wanted to feel like I got a new phone, I got the midnight green with the new matching silicon case. A lot of people online have mentioned how the green doesn’t really look green in real life, not sure what they’re on about but I can clearly tell its green. Its a grey green, not a bright or saturated green, but still green. I took the photo on top in front of my grey wall and you can clearly see how green the phone looks. I like it a lot and it sucks that I’m too clumsy or else I would have really enjoyed the color instead of having it hidden behind an iPhone case.

The changes in the new iPhone compared to the previous XS aren’t that noticeable and the only time you really can tell the difference is when you use the phone side by side with an older one. I found that out because whenever friends with iPhone XS’s ask me about the new 11 Pro, I downplay it a lot. I tell them there really isn’t much of a difference but then they take my phone and start playing with it and you hear sounds like “oooh” and “ahh” either because my phone launches apps a lot faster than theirs or because the new camera takes pictures that are noticeably better and because of the new ultra-wide lens.

After personally using the iPhone 11 Pro for a week now, here are the three things that really stick out for me compared to my XS:

Battery Life
Not sure how many extra hours my new iPhone battery lasts, but I used to leave the office before at around 3PM with my XS battery at around 40% full, now I leave the office with the battery at around 70% full. So a pretty noticeable improvement.

Ultra Wide Lens
Yes the three lenses do look a bit weird on the back of the phone but it also does help differentiate the new iPhone from the older ones. As soon as people see the three lenses they ask me if that’s the new iPhone 11 Pro and want to play around with it. The third lens on the new iPhone Pro is an ultra-wide lens and I’m generally a big fan of these kinds of lenses. I have a 12-24mm ultra-wide lens for my Sony A7 III camera and I tend to use it a lot so I love having a similar lens on my phone which is always with me, unlike my Sony cam. It’s going to make capturing interior shots a lot easier and I love shooting cars with ultra-wide lenses. Below is a photo of my apartment I took using the three different lenses for comparison.

Night Mode
This is a new feature that I’m really liking at the moment even though the effect is very subtle. The new iPhone 11 Pro has a feature called night mode that activates in low light situations. The camera then takes different exposures of your photo and combines them into one brighter and better lit photo. The result looks great but because this process all happens in the background, it doesn’t feel like the phone did anything special. It’s only when you compare the photo with the same image with night mode turned off do you notice the magic. This is why I said the effect is very subtle, not because the phone doesn’t do much but because the result looks natural and more real lifelike. Below is a perfect example of this, I took the shot at Peacock, the first with night mode off and the second with night mode on. In reality, the scene looked closer to the second shot (night mode on).

I do have one big issue with the new iPhone and that is the lack of 3D touch. Not a lot of people know this (which is why it’s a feature that got removed) but with the iPhone X and XS the phone recognizes hard presses on the screen. This was a pretty cool feature that allowed me to do various things quickly. If I was typing something and wanted to move the cursor to a previous word or area in the paragraph, I could just press hard on the keyboard area and then move the cursor that way. But now with 3D touch gone, I need to change my habits. Instead of hard pressing on the keyboard to move the cursor around, I have to now long press on the keyboard space key to move the cursor which is just more awkward and slower. Even something so simple as opening the camera from my lock screen requires me to relearn the button press timing right because I’m used to hard pressing the camera button and opening it up instantly. Instead, I now have to press the camera button for a short time to open the camera and after a week I still haven’t gotten the timing right.

But, the biggest question everyone wants to know the answer to is if it’s worth the upgrade?

If you have an iPhone XS
Probably not, not unless you really want the ultra-wide lens. If you travel a lot or post to instagram a lot then you’re gonna really appreciate the new opportunities the ultra-wide lens will give you. The night mode is a great feature but not nearly as fun or obvious like the new ultra-wide lens.

If you have an iPhone X
You probably should, the camera quality difference between X and XS was big, and the difference between X and 11 Pro is even bigger. Plus the new phone is a lot faster and because your X’s battery probably doesn’t hold as good as a charge now as it did 2 years ago, you’re gonna notice an even bigger jump in battery life.

If you have an iPhone 8 or older
Yes, for sure! The larger OLED screen is the biggest reason you should upgrade but the excellent camera and much faster processor are also really good reasons to upgrade.

Let me know if you have any questions below and thank you Digits for the hooking me up again!

35 replies on “The iPhone 11 Pro”

“worth the upgrade? If you have an iPhone…”

A lot of tech media have noted that the smartphone industry has ecosystems so completely locked that reviewers assume you will never switch from a non-iphone simply because the cost of switching is so damn high.

It’s interesting that you did the exact same thing.

Yeah, it’s harder to compare the iPhone to Android devices because there is so more to a phone than just the hardware. I’d never move to Android even if their phones were better just because I prefer using iOS. I’d assume Android users feel the same way.

“more to a phone than just hardware”

Right, so… software?

but it’s not just the software, though. if you’re an iphone user you’re probably locked into icloud, itunes, the apple watch, and all the other services and hardware apple has in its walled garden that makes leaving so hard.

as an android user i would never use ios because i’m heavily locked into google’s services, but i’m not a fanboy so this makes me sad.

as a tech enthusiast, i lament at the fact that using an apple watch is so hard with my android phone, or why apple won’t let anyone build their own web browser for iOS. it’s a sad state for consumers.

I use the Chrome browser on my iPhone FYI.

About being locked in, if I wanted to move to Android it wouldn’t be that difficult and neither would it be difficult for anyone moving from android to iPhone. Lots of way to do it easily but I just don’t like the android interface and ways of doing things.

“I use the Chrome browser on my iPhone FYI”

Its MUCH MUCH more than that. Chrome browser or Google Maps are just apps. They hardly represent the ecosystem (which is more prominent for Apple compared to Google btw).

As Nononymous mentioned, Apple products generally work better with iPhone, which is their gateway to the Walled Garden. I never had a 100% success rate of using AirPods with my Android phone. However they work effortlessly (auto pairing, connecting, battery and feature management etc.) with my iPhone.

On the other hand, Google app works way better with Android (naturally). Trips, reminders about bills, stock updates etc. are seamless whereas on my iPhone it requires more steps and still doesnt work perfectly well all the time.

It is not impossible, neither highly difficult, but still a great effort to switch between the two. I keep my photos and contacts in Google cloud so a major part of switching is smooth. But till date, you cannot transfer Whatsapp (or SMS or app data) between the two platforms.

Yeah but Airpods is hardware, if you bought an accessory for your mercedes but then sold the mercedes and got a bmw, most likely that accessory might now work anymore, doesnt mean it was difficult to move to a bmw.

Apple forces all iOS web browsers to use the safari webkit rendering engine so chrome (like all iOS browsers) is mostly just a reskin.

but, i have to disagree that it would be easy to switch from android to iphone or vice versa. if you have wireless earbuds, a smartwatch, pay for icloud, apple warranty. If you’ve spent a hundreds of dollars in the play store or the app store, none of those purchases carry over so switching really is hard.

if someone were to spend 300 KD on a phone, that’s perhaps another 100 KD at least on top of that just to get equivalent apps and hardware because nothing works with anything else. and that’s just the cost.

Well yeah that’s actually a good thing since safari webkit is faster and drains less battery than Chrome’s. Chrome on iOS is like best of both worlds, safari backend with chrome frontend.

Regarding the switch from android to ios and vice versa, it’s as easy as switching between a PS4 and an Xbox One. If you bought an xbox joystick and then got a PS4 you don’t expect your joypad to work on the PS4, you don’t expect your games to work either. This doesn’t mean its difficult to switch. It will cost you money because if you want Fifa 2020 on the PS4 and you have the Xbox version it means you need to buy it again, but that’s not complicated.

+1. Android and iOS have both evolved to an extent where 95% of their feature set is similar. Its all about the ecosystem now.

BTW, here’s a fairly balanced review of the iPhone 11 and OnePlus 7T in case someone is interested.
http://bit.ly/2AImAWP

Let’s not get into a debate on ‘why OnePlus’ and why not Samsung. Until Pixel 4 is released, let’s agree (to disagree) that OP7T is the closest to flagship specs and software that you can get in today’s Android world.

Any reason why you wouldn’t go with the 11 Pro Max? I am currently conflicted because I have large hands and the 11 Pro “feels small” compared to the Pro Max but it’s much easier to hold and slide in the pocket.

I need someone to help me make the decision as I am coming from a large Android phone.

I’ve had the XS Max for a year now, and while I have gotten used to the size, it hasn’t really made the experience that much better. The size difference is mostly noticeable on the negative end. Peaks out of pockets, a bit harder to handle, heavier obviously. On the plus side the extra screen size doesn’t really make a difference, its not like I watch Netflix on my phone now just because its bigger (use a tablet for that). Battery life isn’t noticeably better either.

I really feel the difference when I hold an XS, its much lighter and easier. Definitely going back to the regular non Max size next time.

Your apartment looks really well designed. Would like to see more of it, do a post on your apartment mark!

There always the third option, the iPhone 11. 6.1 inch screen (I know it’s LCD, but its perfectly fine), and has everything the Pro has except the telephoto lens (which is not a big deal)

Biggest change to the iOS in general is safari allowing you now to download media on it. Not sure if you spoke about it cause it’s an iOS thing.

Ps. Sick apartment. Mashallah!

you lost me at ‘difference between x and xs was big’. there was minuscule upgrade from x to xs with 0.1 increase in all its specs. No people shouldn’t buy the new iPhone if they have the X or XS the difference is still minuscule, unless you use your camera professionally.

Screen still not up to standards set from way back in HTC ONE, no USB C charging yet (just having fast charging with lightning port not enough). Notch still very much present while rest have moved on.

PLUS. It is pretty much confirmed that the next Iphone is the one that will see drastic changes to design and furthermore, so useless to get this unless you professionally need your phone camera or have the luxury to be that “up to date”.

Only reason i use iphone because i think it’s the best system for mobile phones with its ecosystem like applications etc.

Oh boy here we go

1) I clearly stated that the biggest difference between the X and XS was the camera so disagreed with me and then just repeated what I said

2) Screen not up to standards? You lost any credibility you might have had right there. The iPhone currently has one of the best screens on the market based on all the tech sites reviews so where are you getting your info from?

3) It’s confirmed the next iPhone will see drastic changes in design? Whatever credibility you did have left after the previous point you lost it all here. Apple is extremely secretive and unless they confirm things themselves it’s called a rumor. Stop reading Forbes.

I will reply to your 3rd point first.
3) Secretive? We’ve had leaks and renderings of the iphone 11 pros for almost a year! and you’re talking about secretive. A simple search will show you patents and design leaks for the next iphone.

2) The current iphone 11 pros have had an upgrade to the screen that can compete with what top of the line android but still not market leader in that aspect by no means. The only thing apple products always and will always excel over anyone else is their speakers (barring first generation HTC one with beats)

1) There is no difference in camera, you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. They introduced minor changes to other specs that introduced minor tweaks to camera quality.

Here are the specs for the X and XS cameras since you know so much:
X XS
Front Camera 7 MP 7 MP
Rear Camera 12 MP + 12 MP 12 MP + 12 MP

There are other factors that make it seem like XS tops X over camera picture quality. And STILL very minimal.

It’s ok to own an Iphone (XS) like myself and admit to other phones being better but comes down to preference in terms of use. And instead of directing most of your comment at the person, direct it at the information. If you were so confident instead of questioning my information, to which i provided no proof truly.
Instead you yourself can provide some proof yourself to your claims as this is redundant. Just stick to blogging but check your information first

Lol you can find Apple design patents for self driving cars doesn’t mean it’s the new iPhone 🤦🏼‍♂️

The new iPhone 11 screen is very similar to the X and XS so please stop. Also stop sharing random numbers you’re picking and choosing what works for your argument.

Lol @ random numbers. You can search it yourself and those numbers for X and XS are obviously not leaks and actually numbers lol

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